OUYA System Update “Abominable Snowman” – November 21, 2013

For the holidays, we’re ready to drop our biggest update yet. It’s a lot to cover, so I’ll just jump straight to the notes =)

External Storage is in open beta!

Just plug in a USB drive to get started. Please see the list below for details and known issues.

We support NTFS, FAT32, and ext4 file formats.

Games on external storage are currently associated with the OUYA they were downloaded from (so you can’t use the storage to transfer a game from one OUYA to another. Sorry!).

If you’ve modded your system with apps like Link2SD, you’ll want to undo your changes in order for external storage to work.

You may notice some slowdown while a game is installing to USB. This is expected and is something we hope to address in future updates.

After downloading a game to external storage, sideloading an app will put it on external storage.

Some games do not properly move their saved game data when moved to an external drive. If this occurs, you can move the game back to its original location to recover the save files.

When connecting a USB drive, scanning can take a few minutes if lots of games (100+) are installed. We plan to improve this in future updates, but if you download all of DISCOVER, scanning will take a while.

Occasionally on bootup with an external drive attached, the screen wil go completely orange while the scanning takes place. You can wait for the scanning to finish, or reboot. We are looking into a fix.

When ejecting the USB drive, sometimes it will say a download is still going even if one isn’t. We are working on a fix for this.

UI revamp! We’ve made some significant changes to the look and feel of the UI. (A few screenshots at the bottom of the post)

OUYA is now more intuitive, visually appealing, and better able to feature your games. It’s even got built-in functionality to allow us to update featured games and the wallpaper on the fly.

All game titles are now underneath the tile art, for easier browsing.

Tiles have new icons for installed games and game with available updates.

Controller icons now appear for all connected controllers and will give a low battery indication.

Double tap of the OUYA button will now bring up a System Menu instead of instantly exiting a game.

The System Menu allows you to exit games, eject a USB drive, turn off controllers, or put OUYA into sleep mode.

Games can now be set up to allow purchases from OUYA menus. Games that have enabled this will have a “Buy” button in their System Menu.

We’ll be expanding and adding more functionality to this menu in the future.

Support for faster system updates. We’ve enabled “Incremental Updates”, which means updates (after this one) will be much quicker. NOTE: If you’ve modified your system files, you’ll continue to get the full updates.

Developers can now create links that allow you to download their game to your OUYA from the web. These links aren’t just confined to the ouya.tv site, they can be placed on any webpage. Keep an eye out for these links! You’ll see them start to appear on our newsletter, which you can sign up for on ouya.tv.

Update Notes are viewable on the console. They appear after an update, or you can go to MANAGE -> UPDATE NOTES to view them.

Good ol’ fashioned bug fixes

Fixed an issue where users could not access the Internet because the system clock had reset, causing certificate problems.

Fixed an issue where the download button didn’t always display the proper text.

Fixed an issue where holding the analog stick to the side didn’t auto-scroll

Many minor issues

R2 and L2 can be used to scroll quickly in both PLAY and DISCOVER

One other feature that we think is pretty cool is the ability to run A/B tests on OUYA. If you’ve not heard of A/B testing before, you can read about it here. Part of us being open includes letting you know that we’ll be running A/B tests and gathering results to make the OUYA better for gamers and developers alike. To start, we’ll be testing things like different DISCOVER layouts, different featured games on the Home screen, and auto downloading games for new users. It requires no changes on your end… just know you and your friends might have different experiences =).

Help us make OUYA better!

We’ve created a survey to have you help us determine which features to focus on next. It’ll take literally just a minute to fill out and we’ll use it to determine what our next set of features are. Y’all have made OUYA successful so far and we want to make sure your voices continue to be heard. Take the survey here: http://www.instant.ly/s/wg7ZD

We hope everyone has a great holiday season!

-James, Producer Dude

P.S. we got some fun art for the update too:

James

Producer Dude

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Take a look. It’s in a B–OUYA!

Working!

You Are Our Heroes

HellRa1SeR

Thank you for this awesome update. I was waiting for this for a long time. Loved the concept art and UI on KS. and gradually its getting there

Oleo

Amazing work ! The UI is really beautiful :) And named the updates (like google does for androïd) is a good idea.
High5 from France !

DarthPugz

Cool. Now that this is out of the way, can we PLEASE get the AC3/DTS HDMI passthrough problem fixed??? I fully understand having to remove on device decoding from the XBMC app due to licensing issues, but without passthrough working I’m completely SOL for using XBMC. Once this issue is fixed, my Ouya will be my primary movie watching device!

Michal

I second the opinon. Also – the new UI is pretty nice, kudos here.

David Larsen

Third-ed. Great work on this update, I really appreciate all the hard work that went into it.

Brent Chin

I fourth this! Although the new UI is quite pleasing. Congrats on the effort. Please resolve the Multichannel AC3/DTS HDMI passthrough issue!

Quim Garrigós

Very nice! The system looks pretty solid now. I think you should concentrate on performance now, which is very poor compared to other Tegra 3 systems.

Robert Gill

I find my OUYA collecting dust until AC3/DTS passthrough is restored. I’ll pay for the licensing if its priced how the Raspberry Pi does it.

Why on earth us this? I have lots of free space on the internal storage.

James

It sounds like you are trying to download from the Browser, correct? Assuming that’s the case, it’s a bug that we’ll be working on a fix for.

Martin

New Ouya user here, just bought it today. This error has been driving me crazy… please fix asap!

LazyDoctor

Please try to fix it as soon as possible , many people that I know ( including myself ) are facing the same problem.

tcuzela

Of course he is downloading from the browser. How else do you download stuff? I bought my Ouya about two hours ago and this update makes it a useless $100 pile. The box has 0 apps I want and I have to sideload everything. For example, XBMC has no multi-track sound support due to the Ouya licensing eff-up. If I cannot use the browser to download apps how can I sideload a working XBMC? I’ve downloaded APKs on a USB stick but Ouya will not allow me to browse the files to select them for installation. I cannot download apps, and I cannot install ones on a USB drive. Tell me, in what world does sideload mean “there’s actually no real way to sideload because YOU CANNOT SIDELOAD!”? This update brings the Ouya box one step closer to the closed Apple TV I just returned. And speaking of returns, I have 30 days to return the Ouya–will the fix be out by then? Or should I return this now and move on?

The links to the APK files are in the comment section. But sideload them to a usb flash and follow his instructions.

Dont load the ouya xbmc as it is freaking slow. You wont be able to get google play store though as the ps4oyua.zip is not working in the mod collection….Anyway just follow it. I bought mine from a guy who won it from a radio station for $50. And if things dont change, at least I can take a baseball bat and destroy a $50 plastic box instead of a bill….

What scares me is that I read up on a possible scam with this system, and when you google any type of help, everything is dated back in Jul or Aug. I’m starting to walk towards the batter’s box. lol

jm9843

Instead of whining, why not learn how to do something for yourself? Hint: Google “adb install”

Steven

I’m no Ouya expert, but I found away for me to install my VPN software or any APK. I even installed Aptoide after this update and it turns out to be really simple.

First I was following tutorials and downloading via the browser, the problem I had was I could never navigate to the files to install the APK. I found this post and it would appear to be a known problem.

By pure chance I came across a solution.

Install XBMC from the market place.

Navigate to programs within XBMC

Then you will see Android apps. Click and navigate to downloads.

You can then sideload or whatever you want to call it from here on in.

It worked a treat.

I hope this helps someone.

artyziff

This is really frustrating. It looks like the past downloads on the internal storage are not accessible unless they are installed already. I am trying to reload XBMC and install plugins, but I get an error without a USB drive attached. Please fix this asap.

James

We’ve got a fix for this in testing now. We’re looking to get a new OTA out later this month with a fix for this issue as well as others that gamers are reporting.

Thanks for your patience and reporting the issue!

RGT

Fast forward to 2014, Is this issue going to be addressed? I would like to know if the AC3 / DTS passthrough issue is going to be addressed. I need to know as i’m still debating whether or not I should return my Ouya to Target

James

Download from browser was resolved in the previous update, and we’ve got a fix in our next update for the downloads folder sometimes not appearing.

For the passthrough issues, we’ve been working toward a resolution. At this time, however, we still don’t have a solution in place or an estimated time.

Bruce

Have same problem. Found a workaround: Download File browser apk from some website. Download the Ouya version of XBMC from the store. Go to XBMC -> Programs -> Android Apps -> Download. Then you can run your apk from there. Go Go XBMC!

mikeydangerous

I’m not seeing how to join the external storage open beta. Am I an idiot and completely missing a link somewhere?

James

It’s actually on for everyone =) Just plug in a USB drive (of one of the formats mentioned above) to get started

roy lira

I don’t like how you remove Root Access from the Ouya after every update. Free the Ouya!!

http://www.modsuperstar.ca/ modsuperstar

Install one click root. It’s not that big of a deal anymore. Sure you have to do it each time, but really, it takes like 30 seconds.

roy lira

Takes about 10 seconds actually. The problem is not getting it rooted again..The problem is that you lose everything you did through Root Access.

Николай Иванчев

Where is HDMI-CEC update?
Are you even working on this one?

Guest

What happened to HDMI-CEC update?

Andersen

Looks really great, albeit it seems to run a lot slower than before.

Andrew Hardy

Awesome work guys! Can’t wait to give this update a whirl!

carminee

At the end of the video, you’re wearing a headset with a microphone. However… I’ve been unable to get microphones working with the OUYA and Unity. Does the OUYA work with microphones now? Please say yes!

Also, I tried a blue tooth headset (for listening), but there was a delay :(

aposke

Happy to hear downloading games to USB is finally being supported. A little question, though: Is the incapability of sharing games between consoles via USB a bug or intended development?

jrronimo

I assume this is functioning as intended: Presumably each console has its own encryption key (rather than it being tied to a user account). So, when each game is downloaded it’s locked to that key to prevent piracy. I can conceive of them doing this for ALL games, including free ones, not because they’re trying to be spiteful or are overprotecting or anything, but because it’s easier to have the same process apply to all downloads rather than have exceptions and stuff.

Hopefully they’ll eventually consider tying this to the user account so that users with multiple Ouyas can download once and transfer using removable storage. It’s a very edge case, I think, but I’m sure it’d be useful for some.

Jason Redepenning

what about adding back a way turn OFF not sleep but turn off the ouya with the controller kinda odd that can not do that . like having devices off.

Allen S Schoepflin

We were never able to turn the OUYA off completely from the controller when it said power off it did the same as it does now.

Andersen

So, via gamepad I can only go into energy saving mode, whilst the button on the console itself is a complete shut down? Or is also the button on the console a mere energy saving mode?

Allen S Schoepflin

If you just press the power button on the Ouya it wiljust go into sleep mode but if you hold it down and click shut down it will fully shut down the Ouya.

Andersen

Ahhh… good to know! Thanks, man. :D

Allen S Schoepflin

np

Kaldeem

Has anyone from OUYA discussed any possible collaboration between STEAM and OUYA? I’d love to be able to access STEAM from the OUYA console when relaxing on the couch.

Blackegg13

Won’t happen, Valve is working on their own console.

Walt Wright

Looks like a nice update. Just need overscan compensation (that works) and HDMI audio passthrough and I may plug my Ouya back in.

newgod

i have a question of my own i wanna download something directly into the box and its always asking for external usb storage how do i disable that and download
directly to the box????

orokit

Ouya is full of shit, I ordered a system form amazon and my system have an issue and i have tried to contact there so called customer service to get the issue fix an all they do is fuck me around

orokit

If you live in Canada do not buy this system they will only fuck you around if you have issues. Take it for someone that knows

Paul

It wont let me download or sideload anything. My android phone and laptop are not recognized. I just got mine yesterday and apparently the new update is doing this. Please help.

michael

Keep it up folks, Zombies Night Out is comming to OUYA

Josh

This update pwns so hard. I really love the new UI. I’ve been wondering when that was going to get an update and man it’s slick!

Just wish I weren’t having issues with USB storage. Formatted my drive multiple times in FAT/NTFS/EXT4 just to be told it can’t read it :/. Uninstalled Link2SD and ext mounter, dunno what else to do unless it’s got something to do with busybox.

LucAce

While this update is a good thing what I don’t like are the terms of service. The right to uninstall anything I purchased without notice (and probably without a refund), forced arbitration, account deletion after 12 months of inactivity, deletion of account for what is likely any reason and forfit of balance upon deletion. Also you can’t run games already installed without accepting the new term updates. At least with the kindle you can access the context you purchased if for some reason there is an issue with your account (at least that’s what they claim)

jrronimo

The account deletion after 12 months worries me the most. I’d have to be on a gaming hiatus for whatever reason and come back to find out I’ve lost any purchases I’ve made…

Coil_Whine

Thanks for the update. Best $99 i ever spent on a console

Blackegg13

I’m very impressed with the latest update. It really made OUYA’s main menu much nicer. Hopefully in the next update we will see the HDMI passthrough solved, and Enter on the USB keyboard to work like “O” on controller.

Andersen

Nice update, but really guys, the AC3/DTS passthrough is maybe more important, than you think. Don’t forget, that even people, who use it mainly for watching movies through XBMC still have to turn on the console and see potentially interesting game titles in the main menu. I for myself bought it solely for XBMC, but still played quite a bit with it. Which I honestly didn’t really expect.

Ryan Fucqua Smith

I think they’re focusing on the primary idea of the fact that it’s a game console here. They’re working on that fix, but first and foremost the majority buy it for games, so making that work first and bringing this huge update was a good idea in my opinion. They should resolve the passthrough issue as soon as possible though to satisfy the people utilising the Ouya simply as a video system.

TheBuzzSaw

My goodness. I need help! I got the update. It seemed to apply successfully, but now I am completely unable to connect to the Internet. Both my wired and wireless connections have the same problem: they detect my router, but they are unable to obtain an IP address. If I plug it in, it sits with IP 0.0.0.0 forever. If I unplug it, it detects and connects to my WiFi, but it still cannot obtain an IP address. I reset my router to no avail. Help? Anyone having this issue?

TheBuzzSaw

Hmmm. False alarm? I set the connection to dummy0 then back to eth0, and it seemed to wake up. That scared the crap outta me.

Michal

The update looks clean and refreshing. I however do join the group urging to provide a patch for DST/AC3 passthrough . This little box would be so much more with this feature.

jrronimo

Please consider adding an “Apps” section for things like XBMC/Crunchroll/Twitch/Hulu/Netflix/etc.

cbo31033

how come I can’t download roms no more from the browser says I need a usb can someone comment on this.problem
and wats a good usb to use??????

Paul

sandisk

Anthony Santiago

What we need is a menu option that lists games you have purchased.

ric_1

Hello, I bought my OUYA few days ago and when I turn asked me for an update. All perfect, download the update and everything but when you apply the changes gives me error and says he could not get the update servers OUYA and does not let me menu DISCOVER, or putting on any APK even me Read thumb drives that will stand. What could I do to fix this? Sorry for the bad English, do not speak English and I write this with Google Translate XD. please help me!!

Wilford111

It seems like a good update, but I’m not doing it unless the terms of service are changed so that my account ISN’T deleted after 12 months of inactivity.

disqus_MVyDLJlD8r

So not only is the ouya unable to detect any usb drives, but because of this “you need a usb to download anything” bug, the ouya I bought today is now a $100 cube. Great

Sean Hough

Please fix the dts/ hdmi sound issues so I can use xbmc! It’s an amazing little console which will be my primary hub for viewing my movies! Lets get this issue fixed please!!! I purchased four of these and can’t use until the sound issue is resolved!

Rob Kennedy

This new update made things real tough for me. I can’t seem to get
the ouya to recognize on 3 different computers (was working fine before
the update on my main desktop, tried on both my laptops, same problem).
I’m following the exact same guide I used in the first place and nothing is working.
I’ll admit that some of this is my fault for letting the ouya update before I could back stuff up.

Neither
of the 2 USB drives I have handy will work at all. Says it can’t read
the format no matter what format it is (tried defaults, FAT32, NTFS
eXFat). I can’t download any apps to help fix the situation because of
the browser download bug.

I WAS working on a list
of sideloaded games that worked, or what wasn’t working with them. I
really wanted to believe in the ouya, but its really not worth the
effort. If there was a place I could return it I would. I normally
hate to waste anything but I think it would be a cruel joke to give this
to one of the kids I know. I’ll take $100 lesson and just toss it in
the junk pile.

Candy Cab

You should try the “Factory Reset” option then try the update again. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it fixes the problem since it has worked for others with the same USB issue.

Pāvils Jurjāns

Can’t find the way how to shut down the console from the UI. Is the pushing-and-holding-down the console power button the only way? Since the console is still humming when sleeping, I’d like to keep it really switched off when not in use.

Guest

Awesome, it doesn’t work with my receiver anymore and I have to plug it directly into the TV due to no more HDMI passthrough. Great update; Sony should personally thank you for helping my gaming time spent on their console go straight to 100% because their PS3 has never failed to work with the same basic setup.

Guest

I’m no Ouya expert, but I found away for me to install my VPN software or any APK. I even installed Aptoide after this update and it turns out to be really simple.

First I was following tutorials and downloading via the browser, the problem I had was I could never navigate to the files to install the APK. I found this post and it would appear to be a known problem.

By pure chance I came across a solution.

Install XBMC from the market place.

Navigate to programs within XBMC

Then you will see Android apps. Click and navigate to downloads.

You can then sideload or whatever you want to call it from here on in.

It worked a treat.

I hope this helps someone.

Steven

Candy Cab

You can get to the same place if you go to Manage-System-Storage-Download. If you just need to look at and manipulate files system wide you can use a file manager like File Pwn from Discovery or even better is ES File Explorer since it networks very nicely it’s also free and available in .APK form directly from their web site. Cheers :)

kuzon98

This is a problem I have no idea what’s going on, My downloads on the browser (I’m trying to sideload dead trigger) from drop box, everything was going well until I notice non of my downloads actually downloaded, I did get a ‘starting download’ and I gave my ouya about 3 minutes to guarantee it downloaded but for some reason it didn’t download… any help?

mcjr517910

so i received my ouya within the last couple weeks. i purchased it during a sale and got it for $60. ive been keeping an eye on it for a while now and i gotta say i cant be happier. however, for whatever reason i cannot sideload apps…..anymore. i was able to and i can no longer. when i go into settings, downloads doesnt show up anymore. when i go through xbmc, it will not recognize the apk. ive tried through usb-pc transfer, browser dl, and thumbdrive. is this something other people are having issues with? or just me? thanks again guys keep up the great work, i cant wait to see what comes next.

Wendy Moco

I spend 2 weeks with my ouya, with this update the system totally fucked up, i jus can’t navigate in the discover section, the screen is flickering, etc. My advice is, if you have $100 extra Just go to next corner and buy some crack.